


Arcana Imperii

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Corrupt Lord President Doctor, F/M, Master/Pet, Misogyny, Multiple Personalities, Porn With Plot, Slave Clara, The Hybrid - Freeform, dark!Doctor, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:51:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7360270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has been in power for on Gallifrey as long as anyone can remember: a paranoid, power-hungry and utterly corrupt tyrant. Clara is brought to him as a gift, captured during a raid by his soldiers: a beautiful, fiery human girl, completely unwilling to bow to the might of the Lord President. Refusing to accept the label assigned to her - a <em>pet</em>, to be admired and used - she attracts the Doctor's attention, and sparks a chain of events that may change the future of the Time Lords forever...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arcana Imperii

**Author's Note:**

> This is very different to my usual type of fic, so I'm curious to know what you all make of it. It's inspired partly by a comment made during Before The Flood, when Prentiss suggests the Doctor enslave him, and partly by [this piece of art](http://dalbi95.tumblr.com/post/143594575094/president-12-x-earth-prisoner-clara-original). 
> 
> For the Doctor's presidential outfit, see [here](http://universe-on-her-shoulders.tumblr.com/post/146763284785/took-these-photos-at-the-doctor-who-experience-onl).
> 
> Warnings for misogyny and general shitty attitudes/behaviour towards women, as well as references of sexual assault.

The raid hadn't been ordered by the Lord President, or even sanctioned by the Chief General. It had occurred, as most raids do, incidentally – a small cluster of Gallifreyan patrol ships had been vying each other into new levels of daring aerial acrobatics, and in the course of their showing off, they'd found themselves half a star system away from their base, hovering five thousand feet over a settlement they'd dimly recalled seeing on the NavCom as they made their way out on patrol. Blackpool. It was barely even a town – dull, mediocre, uninteresting; a home for the remnants of the humans that had remained in this sector. Most of them had run scared back to their home planet come the advent of the Time War, but a few stragglers had stubbornly remained here, uncowed by the reputation of the Time Lords, trying to eke out a living at the edge of a system in danger of collapse. These humans were the brave. Or the foolhardy. 

The pilots of the spacecraft were young, and their blood was roaring with adrenaline as they circled over the collection of ramshackle houses, watching the figures below darting for cover. The decision to test the mettle of these remaining humans had been mutual, and they had dived in unison, firing left and right, clearing a swathe through the amassed crowds so that they could land in search of anything they might be able to take home with them, be it human or material. As they stepped from their ships, their guns raised, they had fired indiscriminately, felling humans left and right as they crossed the terrain with the blood pounding in their ears, the screams of panic only fuelling their enjoyment of the massacre. 

When the rock had hit one of them in the back – barely denting the lad’s armour, but wounding his pride enough to cause insult – they turned on the thrower as one and found, much to their surprise, a girl not much older than they, with dark hair and wide hazel eyes clouded by hatred, mouth twisted into a snarl of defiance that did not reach her gaze. 

"Clear off!" she'd shouted furiously, angry tears coursing down her cheeks as she raged at them with futility. "We weren't bothering you, why did you do this?!" 

"What do you make of that?" The captain had asked his troops mockingly, as though the girl could not hear him, although he smirked at her menacingly. He was, as the oldest, in charge by default, and thus the others looked to him as he continued: "It's a lass with _spirit_. I do like them with fire in the blood. It makes for a much more interesting fuck." 

The girl – for whatever her name might have been, they certainly did not care – had paled a little at his casual threat, before regaining a modicum of composure and glowering at them fiercely. "I demand to be taken to your leader," she'd announced with more confidence than she felt. "I have that right, don't I? It's not like I've got anything left here, so let me see the great Lord President before I die. Go on."

The captain had picked at his fingernails as he considered her words, itching to reach for his gun and simply silence the bitch, but equally taking into account the fact he hadn’t fucked anything that attractive in weeks. "We could do that, yeah." He smirked at her contemptuously. "Or we could just fuck you here and then shoot you dead, how about that?" 

"You wouldn't..." 

"Why not? Nice tits, great ass, even if that dress is a touch unflattering..." He had pointed his gun at her idly, one finger caressing the trigger as he instructed: "Take it off." 

"But..." 

He'd cocked his weapon, the sound startling her into taking a few steps backwards. "Take it off," he drawled. "Or I'll have to shoot you first and _then_ fuck you, and nobody wants that." 

The girl had hesitated for half an instant, weighing up the options available to her, and then reached for the hem of her burgundy dress and pulled it over her head, casting it aside and trembling slightly in her plain cotton underwear as the captain eyed her hungrily.

"Please..." She'd begged, fear overtaking her as the adrenaline faded from her system. "Don't..." 

"Captain?" One of the soldiers had interjected nervously, somewhat uncomfortable with the callous nature of his comrades and determined to try to spare the girl from her fate at the hands of the others. "We could take her as a gift for the Lord President... He hasn't had a gift in a while." 

"This is very true," the captain had concurred, mulling over the rewards sure to come after presenting the Lord President with a new toy for his amusement. "Who was his last one? That redhead? With the legs?" 

"That's the one, sir," the soldier had swallowed, knowing that this fate was only a little better than the one that his captain had planned for her, but still desperate to make a difference. "Died six months back..." 

"I remember," the captain had snapped, not needing to be reminded of the sheer bloody _waste_ of the redhead's death. "Well, a nice new pet will cheer him up almightily, won't it? You–" he had addressed Clara then. "Will come with us, as a gift for our illustrious leader. Lucky _you_." He had had one of his soldiers handcuff her wrists together tightly, lest she try to escape, and then led her back to their ship, chaining her to a pipe on the weapons deck

"Please," she'd begged fruitlessly, silently weeping as she implored the men surrounding her for a morsel of pity. "Please, I didn't want..."

The captain's hand had connected with the side of her face then, and she'd fallen silent at the taste of her own blood.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor was in a foul mood when he received word of the spontaneous raid. There had been news of serious losses in Kasterborous, and the Sisterhood of Karn was trying his patience more than usual – he made a mental note to have their latest leader killed, and replaced with someone a little more sympathetic to his cause. Thus the news that his soldiers were bringing him a gift had brightened his spirits somewhat, and he'd made the ascent to the High Council Chamber with both excitement and desire pooling in his groin.

"My Lord President," the captain drawled upon sight of him, caught somewhere between reverence for his superior and arrogance at the provenance of offering up his _gift_. "May I present... Well, a toy for your use, and a good looking one at that." He shoved the girl forward roughly, her knees grazing the stone floor as she fell at the Doctor's feet, and the Lord President of Gallifrey surveyed her with a measured gaze. 

"And you would be?" He asked lazily, appraising her face – a shame about the bust lip, he did _so_ hope she wouldn't bleed on him – and her body in a few lingering glances. Good tits. Decent arse. Less leg than the previous gift, but he was nothing if not an appreciator of variety.

"Clara," she managed, raising her chin defiantly and meeting his eyes without fear. "Apparently I'm to be your new _pet_." 

The way she said the word sent arousal straight to his cock, but the fire in her eyes intrigued him. This was no ordinary girl who his soldiers had brought to him – this one had spirit. This one dared to speak to him as if he was no more than a lowly soldier, and she a common whore. _Brave,_ he assessed mentally. _Or suicidal._  

"Oh?" He smirked down at her, raising his eyebrows in amusement at her tone. "Is that so? Well, you know, custom dictates that I let my soldiers use you first as thanks..." 

Her eyes flashed with something that might have been contempt, and she laughed coldly. "Your soldiers? Your soldiers butchered the people of my village. Men, women, children… all murdered. Your so-called soldiers are little more than savages without honour." 

"No, my dear," the Doctor countered with passive-aggressive politeness. "It is _your_ people who are the savages. We are the upper echelons of evolution and intellect."

"And yet you would have your soldiers fuck me like I’m no more than a piece of meat? Without feelings, or thoughts, or dreams of my own?" 

"The prospect does not frighten you?" 

"If it does, why would I tell you? So you can enjoy my suffering all the more as you stand and fist your cock while I cry?" 

The Doctor fell silent, giving her an icy glare from which she did not flinch. This one intrigued him. Amy had had fire, certainly, but this one – this one did not fear to speak her mind, in a way Amy had never dared. Amy had only told him what he wanted to hear, in between moans and whispers as he took her for his own. This one – Clara? – was honest, and honesty was not something commonly found on Gallifrey. At least not in his experiences. 

"Leave us," he commanded his soldiers suddenly, glaring at them as he gave the order. "All of you."

"Well now," Clara looked up at him with her eyebrows raised as the soldiers began to file from the room, many of them grumbling as they did so, disappointed to have lost out on the chance to enjoy the Doctor’s latest gift. "Are we not to have an audience?" 

"You speak freely," he observed casually, ignoring her comment pointedly. "Have you no fear of me?" 

"Why should I fear you? I have nothing left to lose – my people are dead." 

"Careful now," he said coldly, deciding to see how far he could push her before she admitted she was afraid. "You have _much_ to lose. Perhaps starting with a finger or a toe."

"Except if you take a part of my body, it might make servicing your needs somewhat difficult."

 _Damn it. She was right._  

"You make a salient point." He circled her imperiously, choosing his words carefully. "Do you not know of my reputation?" 

"As a lover, a fighter, or a dictator?" She asked him pragmatically, as though reciting from memory. "Because I wouldn't call enslavement 'love,' and by all accounts you fight dirty, yet as a dictator, Gallifrey has flourished under your cruelty, so perhaps that goes to show only that politics is more your forte than fighting or fucking." 

"Now now," he chided, tilting her chin up so that he might look her in the eye again. "You are indeed a wild one, are you not? Such fire for a human."

"Fuck you," she spat, irked by his insult to her and her people. "Fuck you and this planet. Do what you have to do, you bastard. Get it the fuck over with."

He rocked back on his heels, smirking slightly gleefully at the prospect of prolonging her uncertainty. "No." 

" _No_ _?!"_  

"Oh no. You are quite impossible, you see. A rare oddity – a woman who does not fear me, a woman who will tell me the absolute truth. Do you know how many people speak the truth to me?" He didn't allow her to respond, but continued anyway: " _None_. So I'm not going to fuck you, girl. You amuse me far too much for me to break your spirit just yet. I'm going to keep you around." 

"Well I'm nobody's... _pet_ ," she snarled, but he only gave her a pitying look in response. "How..."

"So be it, consider yourself a prisoner of war, if that title pleases you more," he said with a small shrug, turning and beginning to stride from the room, summoning serving girls as he did so. "I will have you cleaned up, and you shall dine with me this evening."

"But..."

He was already gone.

 

* * *

 

Clara sat at the dining table, fidgeting nervously as she awaited his appearance. She was clad in a barely-there crimson-and-gold bikini, her flesh uncomfortably on display, and she closed her eyes for the thousandth time that day and wondered how things had gone from so utterly normal to... _this_. One minute she had been teaching the children of her settlement, and now she was to be the slave of the man who had caused so much suffering to her people. She thanked the gods she was at least alone, and that there were no servants to witness her ordeal. 

"Clara?" His voice startled her, although not nearly as much as his use of her name. "Let me look at you... My, you certainly are... Well, _delicious_ to look at, if I may say so."

She looked up through her lashes to scowl at him furiously, hating him and hating his words. "Piss off."

"Now now. Be nice. I have a gift for you, pet."

"I thought we vetoed the 'pet' label."

"No, _you_ vetoed it. I rather like it – it's a traditional title for my women. Hence the gift." He held his hands out and there, nestled in his palms, was a solid gold collar. He grinned at her in a slightly disconcerting manner, watching her reaction.

"You're joking."

"I'm not," he said seriously, frowning slightly at her. "Now, we can do this the easy way..."

"Or you can what, starve me? Fuck me? Kill me? Go right ahead."

He sighed and leaned across, a jolt passing from his hand to her temple and stunning her long enough for him to clasp the collar around her neck, the icy metal fusing closed against her throat. "There. Gods, that's attractive. I should have thought this through a little better."

"Oh, yes, my apologies that your fetish collar gift has turned you on so badly you can't concentrate on dinner," she mocked, but he only laughed, shrugging off his cloak and wrapping it around her in a surprisingly tender gesture. "Look, I don't want your fucking cloak..."

"Clara."

"What?"

"You know; I reiterate – I'm _not_ going to fuck you."

"You're... Not...?"

"Not until you want it. That collar is mainly for show."

"Why the fuck–" 

"Can't be seen to be losing my touch, can I? Can't let my pets go wandering about freely, so the collar connects to my gauntlet, like an electronic leash. Keeps you by my side, or near enough – at least during the day." He took a seat at the extreme opposite end of the table and took a sip from his goblet of wine. "It's also partly for your own protection. You're marked as mine now. No one else will touch you." 

"Lucky me, I get to _follow you around_. Big deal. What makes you think I'll want to ever fuck you?" 

"Power makes for one hell of an aphrodisiac." 

"Oh, I bet it does. Must be a lot easier to make a woman see you as fuckable when you're pointing a gun at her." 

The Doctor sighed, deciding to be honest with her – she seemed the sort of woman who may appreciate the veracity of his words and the sentiment behind them. "Almost everyone in this Citadel says yes to me, Clara. If they don't, I can make them, or I can use force to get what I want. _No one_ ever says no. No one ever opposes me. But no one ever _wants_ to say yes. You are an anomaly in that you dared to speak freely. Thus I sense that perhaps you might be different in that one day you may want to say yes to me. Until that day, I will not touch you. Are we understood?" 

"So this is... What? A challenge for you? You want to win me over?"

To her surprise, he blushed, turning a deep shade of red and casting his eyes down to his plate of food, picking at it with his fork to avoid looking at her. "Yes," he admitted. "Maybe a little." 

"Well then," she said coyly, reaching for her wine glass and taking a sip, her own appetite quashed by the trauma of the day’s events. "Yes, we are understood." 

“Good,” he said curtly, fidgeting awkwardly before asking formally: “Tell me a little about yourself.”

She laughed, but there was no mirth to the sound, the action instead tinged with bitterness that he would think to offer such pleasantries after massacring her people. “What is there to tell? I was born in Blackpool, I grew up in Blackpool, I was rather hoping I’d die there. But no, thanks to your shitty regime I’ll be dying here on Gallifrey, with _you._ ” 

“You loathe me,” he observed drily, giving her a long look and wondering how best to proceed with the conversation. “I understand–” 

“No, you don’t understand,” she said hotly, slamming down her glass and barely noticing the contents slopping over the table. “How could you ever understand? I was a teacher in Blackpool – I taught the little ones to read and write. That’s what I was doing when your soldiers attacked. I watched my students die – _children_ , Doctor. Not soldiers, not combatants, not rebels. _Children._ Do you know how old the youngest was?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, cowed by both the force of her anger and the information that his soldiers had acted dishonourably. “I…”

“Four years old, Doctor. Little Artie Maitland, he was a sweet kid, loved animals. This is what your soldiers are doing out there – killing children. Time Lords? Bullshit. You’re a bunch of cowards. You’re not lords. Lords treat their people with respect.” 

“Clara… I…” 

“What?” she glared at him, the anger in her eyes triggering something in him he had not felt for a long time. _Guilt._ An alien feeling, one he was unaccustomed to, and yet he felt a curious sense of culpability for the death of those Clara cared for, although the raid had not been ordered by him. He wanted to make things better between them, wanted this strange, wild woman to view him with some degree of respect, and thus he resolved to do something he had not done in many years. 

“I’m… sorry.” The words fell between them, awkward and clumsy, and she fell abruptly silent as she tried to discern the sincerity of his apology. “The soldiers were not acting upon orders. We do not kill children, that is despicable–” 

“But capturing and raping women is _a-ok_ …” she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear, and he scowled a little at the frankness of her statement, choosing to ignore it in favour of passing judgement.

“Thus I will have those responsible put to death.” 

“ _What_? _!_ ” she asked incredulously, leaping to her feet and gesturing with her hands as she shouted at him. “You don’t get it, do you? Killing begets nothing good. Killing does not solve problems. God, you’re an idiot. How did you end up being Lord President? Did you just kill all those who stood in your way?” 

“Something like that.” 

“Well then you’re not a rightful president. You’re not even a dictator. You’re a _murderer_. You have the blood of millions on your hands, Doctor. God, that name… that name, is that some kind of sick joke? Doctors _heal._ Doctors _care._ Doctors don’t _take_ lives. How did you ever consider yourself worthy of that epithet?” 

“Would it surprise you to know I was not always this way?” he asked, looking up at her as calmly as he was able to manage, deciding to take her into his confidence further and admit the truth of his formative years. “There are those I lost too – those who died in the great Time War. I had been… well, I had not done so well at the Academy, much too interested in thinking outside the box, not to mention rebelling against authority and the old ways. I marked myself out. Got put in a file. Many years later, Rassilon approached me and told me that I was to become… I believe his words were _a super soldier._ Someone to fix Gallifrey once and for all.” 

Clara snorted a little into what was left of her wine, downing it and watching the glass refill with an unwilling sense of awe. “That’s some next-level comic book crap, you know that right?” 

“You recall comics? I would have thought you much too young to remember such a medium.” 

“My family were nerds,” she said with a small shrug. “They saved a few from the old world to show me. I’m not buying this shitty story by the way. Super soldiers are supposed to _help_ the situation, not make it worse.” 

“I was not done when you _interrupted me_ ,” he protested, rolling his eyes at her impatience. “Rassilon made me this offer, and then took me to the Untempered Schism. It’s a hole in the space/time continuum, in reality itself – you can see into the vortex, and it is so, _so_ magnificent, so awe-inspiring…” he fell silent for a moment, lost in his memories. “He showed me it, and told me it would unlock something within me, something the Time Lords needed. Something he called the _Valeyard._ ” 

“The _what_?” 

“Me. Essentially. The other half of my conscience. The nasty half, the half I had spent my youth attempting to supress.” 

“The raping, pillaging, committing-mass-genocide you?”

“That’d be the one,” he acquiesced, ignoring her choice of descriptors as magnanimously as possible. “Anyway, I looked into the Schism, and I felt something… change, within me, and so I allowed the Valeyard to take control. He fought. He won. He stopped the Time War.” 

“Mm, then you-slash-he held a massive coup and now you-slash-he sit up here in your Citadel with your _pets_ , your every whim catered to as you try to maintain peace, get laid, and not get murdered yourself.” Clara snorted disdainfully. “Yeah, what a great existence you have: sex, death and fear.” 

“I was–” 

“You were abused by the Time Lords and turned into a weapon, boo-fucking-hoo. That’s not an excuse to do _any_ of the things you have done.” 

“Clara,” he said coldly, his eyes icing over as her refusal to understand began to try his patience and he felt the Valeyard’s anger beginning to stir within his consciousness, threatening to take control. “You don’t understand what it’s been like…” 

“To be a megalomaniac despot with a split personality problem? No, funnily enough I don’t. Haven’t tried it.”

“ _Dammit, Clara!_ ” he swore loudly, slamming his fists on the table, watching her flinch and feeling the Valeyard’s triumph at her reaction. “I have had people murdered for less insolence than this!” 

Her mask of composure reappeared, and she looked up at him calmly, her eyes wide and serene as she challenged: “So murder me.” 

He stared at her, his breathing laboured as he fought to control his temper and his worse half, a slight sense of guilt beginning to nag at the edge of his conscience – guilt for losing his temper, guilt for enjoying her fear, even if both acts had been the fault of the Valeyard. “Clara… look, contrary to popular opinion…” he said after a moment, determined to show her his gentler side. “I have always been gentle with my pets.” 

“You know,” Clara complained, half to herself. “Calling women _pets_ and raping us is not really conducive to you convincing me what a nice, upstanding fella you are.”  

“Now, that’s unfair.” 

“Is it? What happened to your last _pet_?” 

“Her name was Amy. And she died,” the Doctor said surprisingly quietly, his voice sombre as he refused to meet her gaze. “Nothing violent, nothing to do with me, or my soldiers. There was nothing any of us could do.” 

“What did she die _of_ though? I mean, did she walk into an energy burst, or…?” 

He sighed sadly, needing her to understand that he would not harm her, that he was not the monster that his other half became, the monster that had given him such a reputation. “Clara… you don’t understand, I…” 

“Let me guess, you _loved_ her?”

“Yes,” he confessed, his voice little more than a whisper, and her head snapped up to look at him, her eyes wide with surprise at his words. “I did. Does that surprise you?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, although she fought to remain sceptical at the prospect. “Didn’t think you knew what love was.” 

“Well… _you_ might not have defined it as such, perhaps. It was my last face… I was, perhaps, a little gentler. I wanted to protect her, I forsook all others–” 

“Fifty points to you.” 

“…she was having my child, Clara. That was how she died.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, oh.”

“There hasn’t been anyone…?”

“No, I regenerated not long after. Forced myself to. The last face was a little… well, this one is rather more imposing, fits the image a little better. So you’re the first _gift_ anyone’s brought me in a while.” 

“Full of surprises, you are…” she murmured, forcing back a smile. “I mean, you started this dinner wanting to fuck me and now…” 

“Well, don’t tell anyone. Got a reputation to uphold, haven’t I?” 

“I know,” she assured him quietly. “I understand that… just… well, how much of this is you, and how much is the Valeyard side of you?” 

“I don’t know,” he exhaled slowly, weighing over the question in his mind. “His presence in my mind varies. He was much more in control when I came in here, but talking about Amy… well, Amy was always able to appeal to my better nature.” 

“So you’re basically Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde?” she teased, daring to grin at him a little. 

“You know, you seem to know an awful lot about old Earth literature, considering you were born and bred in Blackpool.” 

Clara shrugged a little modestly, brushing off the backhanded compliment. “I loved to read, Doctor. What can I say?”

“Then you shall be permitted to do so here. Behind closed doors. In public you are to be–”

“Your wench. I understand.” 

“I will not harm you, Clara.” He crossed the room and leant against the table beside her, tucking her hair behind her ears in a surprisingly intimate manner. “You have my word.” 

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” she said softly, sighing. “It’s the _other_ you.” 

“Then it is best perhaps you retire to your chambers,” the Doctor informed her. “You will return to my side in the morning, is that understood?” 

“Yes,” she concurred, standing and handing back his cloak. “Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight.”

 

* * *

 

When she awoke the next morning, it was after a sleep that was plagued by nightmares. She saw her students slaughtered, her schoolhouse destroyed, and her father… she would not think of her father. She _could_ not. 

She focused instead on looking around the sumptuous room she had inherited from her predecessor, sitting up slowly and taking in the extravagant décor – all satin and lace and deep, sensuous reds, everything adorned with gold and gems that were undoubtedly priceless, yet served only to make the whole room look cheap. It was – she thought privately to herself – rather ostentatious; a gilded prison, but a prison nonetheless, although perhaps emblematic of the Doctor’s better nature and his decision to indulge his previous pet’s every whim. 

A serving girl entered the room shyly, bearing a tray of food that she set down at a small table, and with a wave of her hand she indicated that Clara should rise from bed in order to sit and eat breakfast. “Please, miss,” she requested, and Clara rolled out of bed, sinking down in the chair obediently before picking up the fork and beginning to pick at the unappetising-looking food, the majority of which looked wholly inedible. 

“What’s your name?” Clara asked politely, as the girl took out a silver-backed hairbrush and began to fuss with Clara’s hair as she pushed the food around her plate. 

“Jenny, miss,” she replied, brushing Clara’s hair gently and methodically, careful not to pull at any tangles. “I’m your ladies’ maid.” 

“Am I a lady now?” Clara mused playfully, taking a bite out of what appeared to be a piece of toast but tasted more like cork. “That’s a nice change, I was a pet last night.” 

The serving girl blushed almightily, thrown by Clara’s mischievous comment. “I dunno, miss, I didn’t…” 

“I’m teasing, it’s alright,” she assured the younger girl kindly, broaching the elephant in the room: “Did you serve Amy, too?” 

“Yes miss,” Jenny squeaked, grateful to be back on firmer conversational ground. “She was kind, miss, so kind. And the Doctor, ‘e was kind to ‘er an’ all, ‘e was ever so good with ‘er. Not like people’d think ‘e’d be. Flew into the foulest temper if anyone else so much as looked at ‘er funny.” 

“But in the beginning…” 

“Oh, she was a spoil of war, miss! Like you!”

“I am _not_ the spoils of war, I’m a person.” Clara snapped, before feeling horribly guilty for the harshness of her words. 

“Begging your pardon, miss,” Jenny cast her eyes down humbly, embarrassed to have spoken out of turn. “She was taken from the Kingdom of Scotland. It’s all gone now – the Doctor destroyed ‘em for their insolence to Gallifrey. She missed it something awful.” 

“And did he… you know. Have his way with her?” Clara asked as delicately as she could manage, casting aside her food and wrinkling her nose in disgust as she awaited an answer to the pressing question.

“Oh, yes miss. She cried something awful after the first time, I ‘ad to come and bathe ‘er to try and make ‘er stop. Was ‘e rough with you last night? This face of ‘is is diff’rent, I swear it… e’s a whole new man, almost. I ‘ope ‘e didn’t ‘urt you, miss.” 

“Urm,” Clara said, chewing on her lip as she pondered her answer, opting to remain coolly neutral in her response. “No, he was just… well, you know what men are like.” 

“Oh no, miss,” Jenny chuckled a little, moving round to inspect Clara’s face critically, apparently deeming it to not require makeup. “Not my thing at all.” 

“Well now,” Clara smiled at the girl, feeling conspiratorial and enjoying the welcome distraction of gossip. “This place _is_ rather full of surprises.”

The Doctor breezed into the room without knocking, his ceremonial gauntlet already on his right hand as his robes swept around his form imposingly. “Come,” he instructed Clara, without so much as a word of hello, and she stood at once, offering a quiet thanks to Jenny and following him obediently from the room. “Morning.” He said, once they were in the corridor, his demeanour softening infinitesimally. “Sleep well?” 

“What do _you_ think?” 

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” He shuffled slightly uncomfortably, aware he had made a faux-pas and deciding to change the subject. “Look, if you don’t like the room, you can change it… it’s just… you know, don’t want you to be…” 

“Jenny asked if you’d fucked me.” 

The Doctor stopped walking abruptly, and Clara drew to a halt beside him, sensing the importance of the answer she had given. 

“Jenny?” he asked, trying to conceal his panic. 

“The serving girl.” 

“Oh. What did you tell her?” he furrowed his brow, trying to silently communicate the urgency of the situation. 

“I told her you had…” Clara looked up at him, raising one eyebrow questioningly. “Didn’t like to ruin your reputation or anything.” 

“Well,” he said with a small nod of gratitude. “Thank you.” He looked somewhat furtive, shuffling his feet uncomfortably, and Clara could tell that something was on his mind – something that undoubtedly concerned her. 

“What?” she asked nervously, dreading his response. “What aren’t you telling me?” 

“I need to bind you to my gauntlet. Like I said last night.” He looked down at the floor, unhappy with the prospect of causing her pain. “It might hurt a bit.” 

“Why would it…” she didn’t get any further, as he decided to get it over with, clenching his fist and causing the collar to constrict around Clara’s neck, suddenly white-hot, cutting off her air supply, and then the pain had passed and she was choking down lungfuls of air gratefully. “Fuck…” 

“I’m sorry,” he told her, using the unfamiliar words for the second time in twelve hours, remembering – from long ago – how to be sincere in his manner. “It’s just that first time, it won’t do that again. Not unless you try to flee.” 

“Won’t be doing that then,” she mumbled, closing her eyes as she leant against the wall and caught her breath. “That’s my plan foiled.” She grinned at him wickedly, but he only rolled his eyes.

“Clara…” he said warningly, contrasting with her playful attitude. “Look, when I get into the Council Chamber, I won’t be this me. I’ll be the other me.” 

“I know,” she said, with as much bravery as she could muster, swallowing a little fearfully. “That’ll be… OK.” 

He nodded once, almost apologetically, and then stepped through the wide double doors, his manner changing, arrogance in his very walk. “So,” he spat, Clara walking a few steps behind him with her head bowed, the picture of subservience. “What news is there for me today? One of you useless fuckers better have good news, or so help me, I’ll have you shot for treason.” 

“I… uh, the Shobogan Rebellion has been put down. The Order of the Barn’s leaders have been executed,” stammered a nervous-looking general. “So that should maintain some order down there. Got some lovely female prisoners to auction off, you could have the pick of the best?” 

“What would I want one for? Haven’t you seen the new pet?” 

“Yes sir. She’s very pretty, Lord President,” the soldier said immediately, without looking at Clara for longer than a few seconds. “I just thought…”

“I have no interest in those dirty whores. They’re like dogs, the Shobogans. If not worse. Sell them off to some of the border troops, they’re always in need of distractions. And they’re not fussy either.” 

“Yes sir,” the Gallifreyan bowed his head respectfully. “There’s some bad news from Karn…” 

Another man stepped forward and took over the mantle of delivering the daily report. “Lord President, the Sisterhood are still opposing your sanctions…” 

“So have them killed,” the Doctor said coldly, before working his way systematically through the list of problems brought to him that morning. He would look to Clara occasionally with a smirk on his face, watching her as she sat quietly in a corner of the chamber, her face studiously impassive as she consciously avoided meeting anyone’s gaze, desperate not to draw attention to herself. It was early afternoon before he called her to his side during a break in proceedings and pulled her roughly onto his lap, his hands wrapping around her waist as she squirmed slightly in his embrace, his cock reflexively hardening under her arse as she did so. “Now now,” he chastised with a smirk. “Don’t do that, or you’ll regret it.” 

She fell immediately still, his hands splayed flat on her bare stomach, his thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts lightly enough to tease her menacingly. 

“That’s a good girl,” he murmured, a touch condescendingly. “See? One night with me and that fire is quenched.”

“Fuck you,” she muttered softly, grinding down on his crotch with deliberation. “Fuck… you…”

His hands moved to her wrists, gripping tightly enough to bruise, yet no sound escaped her lips as he dragged her upwards slightly, holding her just above his lap by her arms. “Now,” he said sternly, grinning coarsely. “Look, generals. Barely been with me a day, but already she’s gagging for me.” 

The soldiers surrounding him chuckled, eyeing her enviously. “She’s rather… small, isn’t she?” one asked, and Clara scowled at him angrily. “Compared to…” 

“Well, variety is the spice of life,” the Doctor said, with a lewd grin. “Besides, she’s big where it counts…”

The assembled soldiers roared with laughter, and Clara felt her face flush, twisting her hands from the Doctor’s grip and sliding from his lap with a growing sense of mortification. She returned to her corner meekly, trying not to look at the blossoming bruises on her wrists, instead curling up and wishing for the day to be over.

 

* * *

 

She lay passively in bed that evening, face down on her pillows, weeping for all that she had lost and the indignities she had suffered in the past two days. She barely heard the door slide open, not noticing the presence of another in the room until they sank onto the bed beside her, and she immediately flinched, knowing who it would be and what they would want. 

“Clara…” the Doctor reached over and took her hand in his tenderly, turning it over to examine the bruising left by him – his hands, certainly, but the Valeyard’s control, the Valeyard’s sadistic exhibitionism. “Clara, I’m sorry.” 

“Fuck off,” she mumbled into her pillow, rolling away and refusing to look at him. “Fuck off, _both_ of you.” 

“It could have been worse…” 

“And I’m supposed to be grateful for that?” she snapped, sitting up and scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands angrily, ashamed to let him see the pain his words and actions had inflicted on her. “Oh, you bruised my wrists, but I’m _lucky_ because you didn’t grab my tits, or finger-fuck me at the council table?” 

“Clara, I didn’t… he gets out of…” 

“ _I don’t care!_ ” she snarled ferociously, lunging for him impulsively, but he caught her arms easily and restrained her as gently as he was able. “Let me _go!_ ” 

“Clara, will you listen to me?” 

“No!” Let me go, or kill me! I’m not here to sit around and look pretty and let you _bruise_ me! This isn’t helping your cause – this isn’t romantic, or chivalrous! This doesn’t make me want you, it doesn’t win me round to considering you desirable!” 

“Well, here’s a newsflash for you: I’m neither of those things.”

“No fucking shit!” she cried, yanking away from him sharply. “Maybe be a bit gentler with me, or I’ll starve myself to death.” 

“Bold,” he arched an eyebrow at her condescendingly, feeling the Valeyard stir in his mind, intrigued by her threat. “But I would never allow you to do that.” 

“Well, I’ll damn well fucking try,” she said furiously. “Hands to yourself, or I stop eating. I think even those men down there – those men and their dirty fucking wandering eyes – would notice if my tits disappear because I’m starving myself, don’t you?” 

“I think you’re not really in a position to be making demands.”

“You’re not really in a position to be denying them.” 

“Touché.”

“Do we have a deal? You, or the Valeyard, or whoever the fuck I’m talking to?”

“Yes, Clara,” he assured her wearily, capitulating to her will. “We have a deal.”

 

* * *

 

Over the coming weeks, she watched him with those that surrounded him. He had not exaggerated his predicament: they were a bunch of yes-men; advisors who did not so much advise as serve as echo chambers for his ideas; and those who simply hung on to his every word as a form of hero-worship. As he had told her on that first night, not one of them had the gall to say no to him. 

When he decided to make a strategic manoeuvre that even she could see would be costly, they praised him, they admired his tactics – and when it failed, they took the blame without complaint, meek and obedient to the last. Then he had raged at them, sworn at them, and she had watched from a corner as he dismissed them – but yet he ordered no killings, allowing them the luxury of continuing to live, admittedly in the arid Drylands. He had confessed to her that night that he had recalled her words, and he had opted to be merciful to a degree, even if only because the hassle of replacing his staff had seemed costly. When she’d rolled her eyes, he’d chuckled a little – a new sound, a new experience for her to witness – and told her that he was only jesting with her, and she’d eaten dinner quietly with him, content in the knowledge that he had the capacity for change underneath his harsh exterior. 

The difference between the Valeyard and the Doctor was becoming increasingly evident the more she got to know both men – for she considered, in her mind, them to be distinctly different. The Valeyard was cruel, taking pleasure in inflicting pain and the suffering of others, whereas the Doctor made efforts to be compassionate, to make a difference to others, and to listen to Clara. She watched him in the Council Chamber every day, the battle between the two sides of his personality becoming evident as she observed him fight the darkness in order to show mercy to those who slighted him, and thus it seemed some days that the lightness within him was winning. He could still be crude with her when he was the Valeyard, that was certain, but as the Doctor, he was gentle also – considerate, almost caring, and so it came to be, in response to his better side, that she had first kissed him, three weeks after her arrival upon Gallifrey. 

“Evening,” he’d said, almost shyly, as he entered her room one evening holding a garment bag that seemed almost as tall as she was. Her heart had leapt at the prospect of wearing something other than the ludicrous bikini that she had come to see as a reviled uniform, and she had fought to keep from bounding across the room to him like an over-exuberant puppy. “So, I thought you might want something to wear other than… well, that, or a robe.” 

“What is it, though?” she’d asked suspiciously, determined to remain sceptical, narrowing her eyes as he hung it at the foot of her bed and unzipped it slowly. She would not be won over with clothes. She would not allow herself to be bought so easily. “Not that I don’t trust _you_ , I just don’t trust your taste in clothes.” 

“Have a look,” he offered, stepping back and gesturing her closer. “Go on.” 

She’d crawled down the bed with barely-suppressed excitement and looked inside, taking in the welcome sight of a traditional, red-spun dress, the kind that had been the preferred attire of Blackpudlians. She felt a swooping sense of happiness, coupled with a tinge of sadness as the pain of her loss was renewed. “Oh my…” she’d murmured, lost for words as she stroked the fabric with a fingertip, revelling in the softness of the cotton. “It’s…” 

“Do you like it?” he’d asked, and she’d kissed him then for the first time, trying to show him her gratitude through physicality, and when she pulled away, he’d beamed at her happily. “Is that a yes?” 

“Yes, that’s a yes!”

Then she’d kissed him again, just for good measure.

 

* * *

 

With the arrival of her dress – and later a whole wardrobe of similar shifts – Clara found herself being treated with an increasing amount of respect by the Doctor’s assorted servants and soldiers within the Citadel. She could walk around the building more freely, her collar now the only evidence of her status, and the Valeyard – when he gained control – was more inclined to treat her with caution, having seen both the force of her temper and what could be gained by treating her kindly. To her relief, she was permitted to be clothed during the daytime, and to sit upon a chair, and occasionally to speak to the Doctor as he conducted council business – although never about matters of state, those discussions instead being reserved for their quiet dinners together. It was, all in all, a great improvement upon her prior circumstance, and she enjoyed taking advantage of it wherever possible. 

So it was that she came to be sat at the council table opposite the Doctor one afternoon, languidly reading a book of Gallifreyan fairytales, when the assembled generals of the army burst in, bearing news of an uprising in Arcadia, all shouted numbers and potential courses of action, the tranquillity of the moment shattered. 

“What?” the Doctor had boomed over them, his previous good mood dissolving. “Those fools would dare to defy me?” 

“They are burning your effigy on the streets!” one of the generals informed him with a tone bordering on hysteria. “And shouting–”

“I do not need to know of the slogans of the traitors,” the Doctor spat, the Valeyard taking over his consciousness as anger coursed through his veins. “What do they desire?” 

“A decrease in taxes. And an end to conscription.” 

“They want to be free from the military?” the Doctor laughed harshly, all thought of mercy gone as his aggression won out. “Kill them.” 

“Yes sir.” 

Clara turned a page in her book, and spoke without looking up, knowing full well who she was addressing. “If you kill these dissidents, it will only radicalise the majority. You would do better to meet with them and discuss their concerns.”

The attention of the amassed generals turned to her, their mouths hanging open in shock. “Lord President,” one blustered, taken aback by her nonchalance. “You would let your _pet_ have opinions over the matter of politics? You would let her speak to us in such a manner, as if she were an equal?” 

“I will let her speak as her words are not simply my own, mirrored back to me with pathetic assurances of certainty.” He snarled, the Doctor for once echoing the anger of his darker side. “She dares to speak to me the true path, unfettered by the desire to do only as I please. Clara. What would you suggest?” 

“Lord President!” the same general said again with incredulity. “Surely… she is just a…” 

“Just a what?” Clara asked, closing her book and rising to her feet, striding over to the general and squaring up to him. “Just a woman? Just a woman who _holds the Lord President’s favour_ , so I would be very careful about your next words.” 

“You dare threaten me?!” the general exclaimed, striking her across the face, and without hesitation, the Doctor raised his gauntlet and fired a single energy round, striking the offender in the chest and flinging him across the room, where he crumpled against the wall weakly. As the golden glow of regeneration energy sparked around him, the Doctor sent another blast at him, and the room fell silent as the life left the general’s eyes, his comrades looking to the Lord President with silent terror. 

“Would anyone else like to insult my _paramour_?” he asked, the word rolling from his tongue quite naturally, the Doctor and Valeyard both united in that instant by their admiration of Clara. “Because if so, I would suggest leaving now.” 

There were mutterings of _no, Lord President,_ and the Doctor smirked widely at Clara, who returned the look tenfold. 

“Well then,” he said, settling himself back in his chair, the Doctor holding enough influence to force the Valeyard to concede that perhaps this fiery, tiny human may have a useful idea. “Clara, what would you have me do?”

 

* * *

 

The first time they fuck, it’s that night, and they’re both a little drunk on wine and adrenaline as their mouths come together, sloppy and undignified, as she straddles him in the Council Chamber, sat astride the ornate throne he sits upon only on ceremonial occasions. This, they both agree wordlessly, is one such event. 

“You killed a man for me,” she moans into his mouth as she fumbles with the clasps of the ridiculous robes he _insists_ on wearing, hampered by alcohol and the unfamiliarity of the fastenings. “That’s… surprisingly arousing…” 

“I can kill more, if that’s what you want,” he manages, as her hands move up to tug the armour from his shoulders and send it crashing to the ground, her lips finding his throat as she grinds down onto his lap urgently, eliciting a hiss from him in response. “If it gets you this excited…” 

“No, not just _any_ ,” she tells him, finally ripping open the layers of fabric impatiently. “Just the ones… just the ones who are cruel to me, _Lord President_ …”

“Fuck,” he moans, the use of his title causing his hips to arch up in search of hers, her hand snaking down between them and squeezing his cock teasingly. “Clara…” 

“Nuh-uh,” she chides, biting down on his neck and stunning him into silence. “I’m in charge. You got that?” She couples her words with another squeeze of his cock, and he nods, mewling with need as she peels off her dress and pushes his face down into her chest with her free hand. 

“But I…”

“You’ve got a clever mouth,” she purrs into his ear. “So you’re going to put it good use, and that use is not talking. Do you understand me?” 

“Yes,” he manages after a moment, unclasping her bra and allowing himself to cup her breasts in a way he has ached to do for weeks. “I understand you.” 

“That means both of you.” 

“We both understand,” he gasps, as she grinds down on him with renewed vigour, giggling a little at the impact she has on him. “We…” 

“If you disobey me,” she says, her voice an eerily accurate imitation of his own. “I _will_ have you killed.”

“Fuck me,” he mumbles, half an expletive, half a request, and she obeys.

 

* * *

 

It was a year to the day that she had been on Gallifrey. As she sat at the Doctor’s right hand in the Council Chamber, one hand on the curve of her stomach, she contemplated this fact with amusement, feeling their unborn child kicking under her palm. A year since she had been taken captive, a year since she had both lost everything and yet gained so much – power, wealth, perhaps even respect. A year since the man to her left had treated her with uncharacteristic kindness, and thus began her ascension to the role of his right-hand woman.

“Clara?” the Doctor asked, his eyes wide with concern, and she forced herself to shift her focus back to within the room, where he’d been asking her – moments ago – about crop collections and taxation for those in the farmlands. 

“Mm?” she replied, smiling apologetically, leaning forward and looking over the spread of data set before them, scanning it with a practised eye. “You seem to be doing well without my input,” she said after a moment’s consideration of the numbers. “It helps that you stopped killing the tax collectors for, what was it, ‘lying to you’?”

“Shut up,” he retorted with a small grin. “You’re a good influence on me, Clara. A steadying hand.” 

“That I may be, but you still drive a hard bargain, _sir_ ,” she smirked as she said the word, leaning past him and pulling a chart towards her. “Forty percent is much too high. We don’t consume anything like that amount in the Citadel. You cannot expect your people to starve.” 

“I cannot expect my paramour to starve,” he growled protectively, taking her hand in his and squeezing lightly. “My people–” 

“Will _not_ suffer because of your misguided concern for my wellbeing. You have been kind to me lately. Don’t make me soften you up any further.” She threatened, tipping him a wink.

Behind them, well out of sight, a guard rolled his eyes. 

“Well…” the Doctor mused, about to speak again when the doors to the chamber opened and a woman garbed in red strode inside, her face impassive as she looked between the two of them. “Who… Ohila?” 

“So you know of me?” she said coolly, ignoring the guards now pointing their guns at her and taking a step towards him. “After you butchered my predecessors, I had wondered whether word of me had reached you yet.” 

“I… what do you want here?” the Doctor asked, rising to his feet and moving so that he was stood between Ohila and Clara, fully knowledgeable of what the Sisterhood was capable of. “Why have you come here?” 

“I have come because you have forgotten many of the old ways, Lord President,” she said simply. “You have neglected the Matrix prophecies for many years now, besides which the Sisterhood hears whispers of prophecy from other places.” 

“Prophecies?” the Doctor scoffed, dismissing the idea offhandedly. “Nonsense.” 

 “You would claim such prophecies as nonsense?” Ohila questioned, raising her eyebrows. “Even if they concerned… your paramour?” 

“Me?” Clara asked, as the Doctor froze, both of them looking at the old woman with consternation. “There is tell of me?” 

“Not of you,” Ohila explained simply, but Clara’s worries did not dissipate at her words. “Of your child.” 

“What of our child?” the Doctor asked, panic rising in his gut, anger rising in his tone to conceal his fears. “Tell us!” 

“There is tell that the child is the hybrid of old. I am sure you remember the legends, but your paramour–” 

“Need not concern herself with such rubbish!” 

“No,” Clara argued, stepping past the Doctor and meeting Ohila’s gaze. “What hybrid? What do you mean?” 

“There is tell,” Ohila told her. “That there will be, at the end of days, a hybrid. A combination of two warrior races. That child will bring about the fall of Gallifrey, and rise in its ashes.”

“And you think…” 

“That the child in your womb is the hybrid? Yes. There is evidence so.”

Without warning, the Doctor snatched a gun from a guard and shot the old woman where she stood, repeating the gesture once, twice, three times as she crumpled to the floor at his feet and Clara screamed. 

“What was that for?!” she shrieked, seizing the weapon from him, casting it across the room and watching as his face hardened, his expression conflicted. 

“Which of me would you have answer?” 

“ _Both_ of you!” 

“She must die because she is a threat to you,” came the first response, which she understood to be the Doctor, gentled by her influence. 

“And she must die because she knows of the child, the child who will destroy worlds, who others would seek to claim.” The Valeyard added, his motives driven – as ever – by a desire for power. 

“You speak as if our child is a weapon…” 

“They _are_ a weapon,” the Valeyard told her frankly. “And Ohila would have spread word of them across the universe. I cannot have our child put at risk when they are such a valuable–” 

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Clara warned, unwilling to allow his callousness to reach her ears. “Don’t even think about it." 

“Very well,” the Valeyard sneered, cocking the gun and aiming it at the nearest guard. “May the secret be kept between us.”

He began to fire upon his own soldiers indiscriminately, Clara’s screams ringing in his ears.

 

* * *

 

Clara lay in bed, a little weary with the efforts of labour, her son nestled safely in her arms. She had insisted that the Doctor be banned from the birthing room as she delivered their child, knowing that of late his paranoia and over-protectiveness might have caused problems during such a difficult process, and thus judging that his absence would render not only herself and the infant safer, but also ensure the safety of those working to assist her.

Since the deliverance of Ohila’s message he had returned to his old ways, with the Valeyard seizing control more frequently, as indiscriminate killings, mass executions and unnecessary violence became increasingly common across Gallifrey once more. Despite her pleas to his better nature, he countered that spies had infiltrated every level of the Citadel – spies that wanted their child – and as his paranoia grew, she had retreated increasingly to her rooms, seeking to keep company with Jenny, well away from the macabre environment of the Council Chamber. She cringed from his touch now, unwilling to share a bed with such a monster, unwilling to do little more than dine with him each night, the meal barely finished before she would escape to her bedroom and spend hours crooning softly to their unborn child, reassuring them that they would be loved, that she would not permit them to be used as a weapon. 

She looked down at the infant in her arms and smiled lovingly, memorising each tiny detail of his face. He was, in her eyes, perfect, with a shock of dark hair and wide grey-blue eyes, the perfect fusion of his Time Lord father and human mother. _Or,_ she tried not to think the words. _The perfect hybrid._  

There was a soft knock on the door, and she murmured her assent for her lover to enter, smiling at him as he slipped inside and took a seat beside her bed, appraising his wife’s health silently, critically, before allowing himself to look at their son. 

“Hello,” she whispered to him softly, their son gurgling happily in her arms, and she watched his expression melt as he looked down at the tiny child at last. “Meet your son.”

“A… oh, Clara… a _son_ , gods…” tears sprang to his eyes as he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, looking down at the little boy and beaming proudly. “I was so worried, but I see now… oh, you’re so clever.” 

“We both are,” she countered good-naturedly, watching his engrossment with his son. “Would you like to hold him?” 

“Of course,” he agreed, and with her silent permission, he scooped his son into his arms with uncharacteristic tenderness, cooing over him contentedly in Gallifreyan before turning his attention back to Clara. “What are we calling him?” 

“Aiden,” she said determinedly, unwilling to argue. “It means _warrior_.” 

“My son Aiden,” he said warmly, pleased with the name, stroking the baby’s hair, enjoying the intimacy of the moment, his paranoia momentarily allayed, the Valeyard absent from his consciousness for the first time in months. “My son the warrior.” 

“I think he’s a little sleepy,” Clara told him, leaning over to adjust the baby’s blanket carefully. “Could you lay him down to nap?”

“Of course,” he murmured, standing up and crossing to the carved wooden crib that had been set up in a corner, crouching and laying his son down with the utmost care. “Clara, look at–” 

He turned to look at his wife and found her stood beside the bed, both hands steadying a gun he recognised, dimly, as his chief general’s. 

“Clara…” he said slowly, taking half a step towards her and then halting as she cocked the weapon, his brain unable to process the information it was receiving, settling on the somewhat weak initial question: “Where did you get that?” 

“Oh?” she asked mockingly, her tone cold and unrecognisable. “Is that the question you want to ask me right now? Are there not some others in mind?” 

“Well,” he admitted, holding her hands up in a placating manner. “There’s also the question of–”

“Why I’m levelling a gun at your head, you murdering piece of shit?” she spat on the floor at his feet. “Is that the one?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Well you see, _Lord President_ ,” she said his title as though it were an expletive, snarling the words. “While it’s been wonderful staying here with you, being your pampered little paramour, bearing your son, the fact of the matter is, I’m only really here for _revenge_. It’s been a long time coming – I wasn’t expecting the side issue of having your child, but you know, once I heard Ohila’s message, I realised that perhaps it could be advantageous.” 

“Clara, I don’t…” 

“Shut up. I am so _sick_ of listening to you. You never asked, did you? Not once, not once during these last few months. You piece of shit.” 

“Asked _what_?” 

“About my _father._ Not that you generally bother with such niceties – I’m sure you never asked about Amy’s, but then, you knew he was dead, didn’t you? Wasn’t a bother, because he was out of your hair for good.” 

“So, what about your father?” 

“My father,” Clara spat, her expression bitter. “Was a good man. He worked with me at my school, helping the children to grow vegetables and paint pictures and be creative. When your patrols came by, he took the children inside, convinced that even your _filthy_ lot would never touch a school. He was always somewhat disillusioned by romantic notions of war.” She paused, determined to keep her composure. “He sent me to radio for the militia, for anything – and then your _vile_ soldiers threw a grenade into the building, and I had to see everything I worked for, every _thing_ and every _one_ I loved, reduced to rubble and scraps of flesh.” 

“Clara…” 

“Shut the _fuck_ up, I’m talking.” She scowled at him furiously, willing her hands not to shake. “So you see, Doctor… I let myself be brought here. I waited. And now? Now I have you just where I want you…” 

“But you…” 

“Love you? Oh, please, don’t flatter yourself.” She laughed cruelly. “You really know nothing about love at all. For instance, someone who loved you probably wouldn’t do this.”

She shot him once then, non-lethally, aiming for his leg and watching with satisfaction as he howled and crumpled to his knees before her. 

“Clara!” 

“I want you to beg for your life,” she snarled. “Go on. Beg, like a dog. Beg, like an animal. I want to see you suffer, in the same way my loved ones suffered.” 

“Please,” he implored her, desperate to change her mind, desperate – above all – to _live_. “Clara, please… Clara, I’m sorry, please, don’t do this, don’t kill me, our son…”

“Our son can cope just fine without a father, Doctor. Or Valeyard. I don’t know or care any longer. Where does one end and the other begin? Who knows. Either way, our _hybrid_ child will do just fine. Now. Look at me. I want you to look at me as I kill you.” 

He turned his face to her then, silently pleading, and she shot him in the chest, allowing the golden glow to envelop his body before firing again twice in rapid succession, kicking his lifeless corpse back to the floor with one foot and then crossing the room to lift her son into her arms. She watched for a moment as the regeneration energy – with nowhere to go, robbed of a physiological purpose – circled the room lazily, smouldering against the expensive satin of her bedsheets, the thin fabric bursting into flames.

 

* * *

 

When the fire burned itself out many hours later, the Citadel was completely destroyed. Warily, those who had travelled from Arcadia to watch the fall of the Doctor’s regime approached the ashes, hunting dutifully for survivors but finding only charred corpse after charred corpse. 

It was not until Clara stood up, the infant in her arms beginning to wail, that they noticed her. 

A mother. 

A baby. 

A hybrid.

Rising from the ashes of an empire.


End file.
